El Maguey Update: Restaurant Needs Independent Tests

After being closed for more than a week following a discovery of sewage in the kitchen, a popular Mexican restaurant in West St. Louis County will need to take more steps before health department officials will allow it to re-open.

County Health Department spokesman Craig LeFebvre said the El Maguey restaurant on Manchester Road satisfied officials that the entire restaurant and not just the kitchen area has been disinfected.

But LeFebvre told Patch Friday afternoon said the county will not schedule a new inspection of the facility until an independent lab confirms that fecal coliform is no longer present.

A restaurant employee told Patch earlier this week that there had been hope that it could have reopened by Friday. A message seeking comment from restaurant management was left Friday afternoon.

LeFebvre told KMOX that 'people in the food program have said they have not seen something like this forever.”